And We're Up And Running

"When you get caught between the moon and New York City"
Arthur's Theme-Christopher Cross

Gone are the days of racing on inferior tracks like Glen Mills,Swarthmore or Albright,these days I tend to run most of my indoor meets at The Armory in New York,right now 5 of my 7 scheduled race indoors this winter are at The Armory.
Even w/ mass transit it only took 3 and 3/4 hours to travel from Philly to The Armory,catching up on my diary,taking a nap and and listening to some INXS on my ipod,I arrived at The Armory by 5.30pm leaving me 90 mins to get ready.
My last trip here was in mid March for the Front Runners meet when I shaved fractions off the 2 mile club record,tonite was a more conventional mile.

I seeded myself at 4.30 which put me in the seeded heat of the mile w/ guys half my age,never a worry to me taking on guys I'm old enough to be the fathers of,eventually I'll have to start"acting my age"and dropping down the pecking order but till then I'm planning on mixing it up w/ the younger guys.
12 men per heat and a waterfall start,I drew #3 but got another awful reaction to the gun and ended up taking one step forward and two steps back to allow myself a clear run down the back straight.
No clock which was some what frustrating,I heard splits of 33,64 and 2.13 for laps 1,2 and 4 after that I don't recall the time keeper calling times.
I'd gotten myself upto 4th I think b4 a bunch of guys went by me,on the final lap I felt strong and worked my way back up to 8th to finish in 4.33.7.

For a season opener it was a refreshing start and went a long way to exorcising the demons of last years opener but clearly there's still work to be done,while I never felt I was taken out of my comfort zone tonite I do know I can run harder and faster,but that said it's the first race of the season and there's a long way to go in the season.

Left The Armory by 8.30pm and got home by 12.10am,since I'd scheduled a day off I allowed myself the chance to stay up till 2.30am a little blog and Facebook activity and a chance to revel in England winning The Ashes vs Australia in Australia for the first time in 24 years.
Hit"the slopes" around 1pm to get another easy 8 miler in to get any residual junk out of my legs b4 tomorrow mornings 400m race in Delaware,last year after the opening nite of the Thursday Nite At The Races I struggled to run a 6 miler,no such worries this year,another ghost exorcised so now for the third and final one,last year I failed to make the Millrose 4x400m team,tomorrow I have a chance to book my place on this years team...two down,one to go.